77-Year-old Whale Recording Discovered

The oldest recording of whale song to date has been discovered. This could open up new avenues of research into changes in whale behaviour, reports The Guardian.

On a crackly recording from March 1949, an almost howling sound can be heard. It is a humpback whale singing in the waters around Bermuda. The recording is the oldest known and was discovered last year by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, USA.

The recording gives researchers the opportunity to study both the song and the surrounding sounds, says researcher Peter Tyack at Woods Hole.

It shows us what the ocean sounded like in the late 1940s. It is otherwise very difficult to recreate.

With this recording, researchers now hope to study whether and how the whales’ song has changed as a result of increased human impact on the oceans, such as increased shipping.

^{Cover image: Humpback whales sing a lot to communicate. Image from 2025. Photo: Mark Baker/AP/TT}